Later, Navarrete's point of view was picked by French Jansenists and Voltaire.
Nestorian Stele | Mesha Stele | View of the 1413 Yongning Temple Stele, from ''The Russians on the Amur'' (1861) by Ernst Georg Ravenstein | Mesha stele |
The Nestorian Stele, set up on 7 January 781 at the then-capital of Chang'an, attributes the introduction of Christianity to a mission under a Persian cleric named Alopen in 635, in the reign of Tang Taizong during the Tang Dynasty.
It was used e.g. by Michał Boym and his two Chinese assistants in the first publication of the original and Romanized text of the Nestorian Stele, which appeared in China Illustrata (1667) — an encyclopedic-scope work compiled by Athanasius Kircher.